digital

😮‍💨 Coming up for air

It’s been nearly 6 months since I last posted here, and I have been really quiet on the likes of LinkedIn and Bluesky too. If I am honest doesn’t feel like months, this year has just raced past.

What’s been keeping me busy is a whole range of things, the big one being we moved house (again! but hopefully for the last time) on Christmas Eve – not recommended – and have been having a whole load of work done to make the place work for us. This is the first time I have really owned a house, and it’s been a real learning curve.

While all that was going on I’ve also had ups and downs with my health – as I get older my type 1 diabetes demands more and more of my time and changes to my lifestyle. I’ve been going to lots of appointments, at GPs and hospitals, having injections in my eyes and all sorts of things. It’s all positive, and I am feeling the benefits – but again, it’s just taken up a lot of my thinking time. More recently I have had some awful trouble with my teeth, which took me out of action for a few weeks.

Finally work has been intense this year so far. It’s been brilliant, but knackering. I’ve done loads of strategy work for various councils, as well as looking into areas such as skills, leadership, and more. It’s been incredibly fulfilling, if occasionally stressful at times. I also got to contribute to reports like Future Governance Forum’s ‘Local government for the digital era‘ and the LGA’s research into the implications of local government reorganisation on digital teams.

I’ve also been lucky to be working with the Local Digital team at MHCLG, helping form strategy and approaches to improving the consistency of digital in councils across the country. This is continuing through the year, which is great, and offers opportunities to help research the potential of things like One Login for the sector, amongst other things.

Anyway, the work on the house is coming to a conclusion, I’m feeling better in myself, and work is a bit less intense. So I’m emerging from my cave, reopening my feed reader, and re-engaging with the online world again.

📅 Daily Note: December 13, 2024

Dave Rogers answers the question Just what is ‘Test and Learn’?

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Lloyd writes up his experience of new, location based social network thing Mozi. Just like it’s 2008 all over again!

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Anything that helps me (and others) understand Wardley Mapping better has to be a good thing. Here’s Will Larson’s Rough notes on learning Wardley Mapping.

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📅 Daily Note: December 12, 2024

It looks like – thanks to some heavy debugging and re-developing from Steph – the new way of creating the Daily Notes is working! I’ll write up the thinking about it and how it works shortly.

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One issue with my new blogging workflow is its dependence on a WordPress custom post type – and my editor of choice, MarsEdit, doesn’t currently talk to such things.

So, am testing a bit of code to get around this. In effect, I send a ‘normal’ post to WordPress from MarsEdit, only as a draft, and in a particular category.

When WordPress receives this, it spots it, copies the content and tags to a new micropost in the custom post type.

Currently the original post is left in drafts for me to delete manually, but I’ll probably automate that once I’m confident it’s working ok.

So, a bit janky and duplicative, but it ought to work ok. Will see if there’s any unforeseen repercussions on performance or anything like that. Code is on Github, if you’d like to make use of it.

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Jeremy’s 5 reflections on his year at Homes England are interesting, wise, and definitely worth thinking over.

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📅 Daily Note: December 11, 2024

Digitisation, politicisation and the civil service by Martha Lane Fox:

Today’s reality is clear: digital skills are no longer optional extras. Data analysis, digital service design, agile project management, let alone the nuance needed in understanding new AI tools, have become as essential to governance as policy writing and stakeholder management. This shift creates real tensions within our supposedly neutral institutions.

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AI product management in high stakes domains – Alan Wright shares a bunch of approaches that have worked well for him.

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Our positions on generative AI – Steve Messer details a sensible set of stances on the ethical and effective use of LLMs and so forth.

AI is more of a concept, but generative AI as a general purpose technology has come to the fore due to recent developments in cloud-based computation and machine learning. Plus, technology is more widespread and available to more people, so more people are talking about generative AI – compared to something even more ubiquitous like HTML.

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Lloyd has written up how he is using Micro.blog and a custom script to deliver a daily summary of his micro-posting to his WordPress blog.

There’s more than one way to skin this cat!

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💡 How the Institute of Digital Public Services could get started

A lot of people seemed to like the idea of the ‘Institute of Digital Public Services’ (IDPS) – admittedly a few didn’t, but not enough to convince me it isn’t an idea worth pursuing!

How on earth to get something like that off the ground though? I must admit I am well outside my comfort zone with things like this. Findings funders, setting up governance arrangements, creating legal entities. Not really my wheelhouse.

So, as is often the case with one of my ideas, I think about how it could be bootstrapped with minimal effort and risk. Of course, that means there’s a higher chance of it not being as effective, but I have to work with what I’ve got, right?

So how about this:

  • The IDPS is a website. People join, which means they are added to an email list
  • Every other month, a clever digital government type is asked to pen an article that sets out a big idea, and it gets published via the site and the email list, and all the social get a ping. Comments on the article provide a space for discussion
  • A few weeks later, an online session is run where the author gets to explain their idea, an expert panel quizzes them, and a Q&A happens with the attendees
  • Rinse and repeat every couple of months
  • Maybe – maybe – an annual in person get together where the speakers discuss their ideas in person and everyone gets to meet each other, which might be nice

So, cost = low, risk = low, impact = probably also low. But it would be a start and maybe enough to get serious people interested in doing it properly.

Thoughts?

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